Last month, in the MSL Survivor, Calm played a game on Destination vs Tester where he used what appears to be a speacial map-specific build I had never seen before. Maybe the obscurity of the game (2 not too big players that didn't advance into the Ro32, PLUS savior was in their group) lead to it not getting much attention(or maybe this is just an older build/strat that I've just never seen before and I now look like a huge newb for making this thread), but I thought this build was AWESOME(also I'd like to note that . Basically it's somewhat playing Zerg like Terran (small harass through the midgame with large turtling into 1 big push).
This build is used best(?) vs the now-standard 4gate-2archon protoss build, or at least that what both games using this build were against.
It involves the standard 12 hatch into 3 hatch spire, with walling-off the 3rd ala Shark's Desti wall(sixghost made a thread about it here). Unlike Shark however, Calm went for a much less aggressive style, completely skipping the hydra den and basically pumping sunkens, drones, and mutas in the midgame. It seems to be very important to keep the whole of your mutas alive for the entirety of the game, so don't risk your mutas to snipe a templar or something if it might mean losing all of your mutas. It is key to delay the protoss's 3rd as long as possible.
So essentially, you turtle up your nat and your 3rd while harassing the protoss with mutas, all the while only spending gas on replenishing mutas(ideally not too many) and upgrades. Get a relatively fast hive with greater spire and defiler mound simultaneously, and after those complete, an ultralisk cavern. Also once the hive starts, start making production hatcheries outside of your initial 5 hatchs (I think that calm and by.hero start with 5 hatches and scourge is to fake the standard 3hatch spire scourge into 5 hat hydra) and start pumping LOTS of lings.
Ideally you will have defilers + consume, about 10 guardians behind a protoss base, and about 100-150 upgraded cracklings all at once. Suddenly you will go from complete turtleness into non-stop attacking, with guardians attacking 1 base and your mega ling force attacking another, with the goal of eliminating nexuses ASAP and then totally overwhelming the protoss (perhaps even scaring them into thinking that your economy is better than it looks) with lings + defilers and eventually ultras once the armor upgrade for them finishes. The build actually seems somewhat "all-in", but it's hard to imagine a scenario where the protoss comes out way on top (also I believe during the onslaught calm and by.hero take a 4th gas, but It's hard to tell since the observer never goes to where it seems a hatchery is building).
Here are the VODs in case you have missed them (very entertaining games, especially calm vs tester):
Calm vs Tester
and later by.hero used the same build vs backho in the MSL survivor
(it is worth noting that by.hero plays the build slightly different, most notably a more aggressive midgame with more lings attacking the P's army, and by.hero failed to delay the 3rd for very long, mostly because backho took the left expansion and not the right (I think).
Here is the jist of Calm's BO from what I can gather watching the VOD: -12 hatch into 3 hatch -lair 1st -6 lings -ling speed -more lings (12?) -4th hatch helps wall-in 3rd -5th hatch at nat -gas at nat in between ling speed and 5th hat? -sunken at nat after spire completes -scourge 1st -start to sunken up 3rd -mutas before sunkens -4 sunks at each base to defend vs 1st push -lings to delay 3rd while protoss pushes -hive and 2 evo chambers during this time -take mineral only after hive starts -defiler mound, greater spire, and presumably andrenal gland immediately after hive finishes -start extra hatcheries(3?) and mass ling production around 75%(?) of defiler mound -completion -ultra cavern once defiler mound completes -as guardians morph(behind main), move lings/defilers into position to attack 3rd -attack with guardians 1st to divert attention away from 3rd, then attack 3rd with defilerling essentially rally non-stop cracklings towards the 3rd and min only, go for nexus snipe. -take 5th(?) at this time -make ultras once upgrades are complete (although calm never got to that point)
It's important to make sure that you are ready at BOTH your nat and your 3rd for the P's 1st push, so make sure to scout when the P moves out so you have sufficient lings/sunkens/mutas to defend.
I have had mixed results trying this build myself (bear in mind I totally suck at SC and my highest ICCUP rank is D+). I am 1-3 with it, but they were all vs my same friend, the 1st time it worked, next 3 times I died to 1st push because my muta timing was off or I forgot to make enough sunkens at my nat (also I never really analyzed the build until just now, and didn't realize the need for speedlings in the early mid-game). Overall it's a very fun build to use, but requires strong muta micro.
Point of interest: After Shark used the 3rd base wall-in and Calm used this build in the very next ZvP played on TV, Zerg have only dropped 2 games on destination since, going 9-2 and completely undoing the P>Z statistics on the map (It is now actually 55% in favor of Z). --------------------------
So has anyone used this build before? Is this build actually not new at all and I'm just giving calm credit for such a cool build for no reason? Is this build not cool? Does this not belong in the strat section? Is this build viable on any other maps? What counters this build and what is it good vs? Too many questions? Should I have took screenshots and posted them here like sixghost did?
wow. um... ive always thought sunkens were under used. i have a habbit, maybe bad, of making at least 2 and a spore, and some units at each expo. i cant bare to leave them undefended. so i like that part of this game. really locking down your territory.
the only real problem i see, is that i dont know how may players can reasonably expect to be that effective against archons with just mutalisk. i mean, maybe my micro is bad, but i couldnt even pretend to do this- some of his micro just looks godly to me.
I've seen this general build used a few times before but never with so few mutalisks before. There was a game of savior vs free on zodiac where savior went mass muta into hive like this but that was over way before the hive tech. Jaedong did a heavy muta with double evo build on athena vs much but the game ended before hive tech their as well. I recall watching an fpvod of Jaedong vs Much on blitz where Jaedong used pretty much the exact same build but went ultralisks before defilers (however abused the double gas island expo instead of mass sunkens) which according to TLPD was in 2006, so the general build is actually pretty old, and calm just refined it to fit the map and current play style.
I think the main thing in Calm's game was just that he managed to pick off 2 archons without losing his mutas, making Tester so lacking in gas units that he couldn't recover. I mean mass mutas is a pretty viable strategy, so playing down 2 archons was just too difficult.
I've used this build quite a few times and have won far more than I lost with it. The build can be used on other maps but I wouldn't suggest it against the speedlot+2 archon push. But I have found it to be incredibly good on Python because not only can you take 4 gas while only needing to mass sunks at 2 bases, but the really hard to defend 3rd gas on Python makes it very difficult for P to expo while still keeping his main and gateways covered.
The main use I have found for this build is when P goes +1 speedlot rush (usually after 1 corsair) because most P just assume you are going to transition into something else. So they go for the standard goon+storm+obs 1a2a3a midgame push and just get run over because all those are bad vs mutas. And even if they don't their failed rush still puts them behind so the strat is still perfectly viable. The main thing about this build is that usually if you win with it you could have won using any other followup instead of fast hive tech.
As for "counters" to this build the main thing that comes to mind would be what Best did in his game vs Haran on Chupung where he did the 4 gate speedlot+archon rush but continued to pump corsairs from his stargate (even if Haran wasn't doing anything like this build).
I don't see how you can stop protoss from taking a third if you're turtling. Yes you can use mutaling, but protoss can easily protect his 3rd with zealarchon+corsair. Most P's don't even go for the intial push, if they see you turtle. They'll be happy to match 3 base with 3 base and then run you over.
On January 30 2009 16:15 cUrsOr wrote: wow. um... ive always thought sunkens were under used. i have a habbit, maybe bad, of making at least 2 and a spore, and some units at each expo. i cant bare to leave them undefended. so i like that part of this game. really locking down your territory.
I always thought sunkens are over used. At the cost of 2 sunkens, you can get a hatchery so can make more drones and have them mine. Then you could use the money to make even more drones or make zerglings.
K guys I know the standard TL response to _any_ strategy thread is "not viable vs a good player" but seriously, this has been used TWICE in _pro_ level brood war. It does work even versus good players ok. It's obviously not the most solid of builds, but it's not completely unviable either.
its another viable build in a bag full of viable builds. it all depends on which build its up against etc etc. so ya, this idea shouldnt be shot down by you fanboy sissies. esp. considering that 3hatch muta into 5hatch hydra seems standard atm; this really throws a wrench in toss face.
Hmm...this will be useless if toss opens sair/reaver, or if he gets a couple archons early unless you're like Jaedong and can micro mutas against them.
Beyond that, I imagine you'd have to cripple them to be able to make it to hive. Holding a third on a map without an easy third gas will be difficult. You will REALLY have to continuously hurt toss's econ and delay tech significantly to pull this off.
In all honesty, I think if you do enough damage to make this tech rush work, you would also have been able to finish the game in half the time with a timed cannon break with hydras...
i am not sure whether this works for lower levels of toss players or wat,i just dl-ed a replay a few days ago and saw this build,the Zerg was crippled when the guardians start attacking cos those died to mass sairs.The P expands too much while u are turtling,i dont see how u can hurt their econ if u gonna turtle till hive tech.
On January 30 2009 20:53 stack wrote: its another viable build in a bag full of viable builds. it all depends on which build its up against etc etc. so ya, this idea shouldnt be shot down by you fanboy sissies. esp. considering that 3hatch muta into 5hatch hydra seems standard atm; this really throws a wrench in toss face.
The standard is 3hatchlair -> 5hatch -> scourge when spire finishes -> hydras.
3hatch muta transitioning into hydra is a rather different build.
On January 30 2009 17:23 T.O.P. wrote: I always thought sunkens are over used. At the cost of 2 sunkens, you can get a hatchery so can make more drones and have them mine. Then you could use the money to make even more drones or make zerglings.
i have a saying, i like to leave the progaming to the progamers. id like to pretend i could have 5 un-defended expansions and defend them all with my standing army, but usually a scouting protoss will rip hatcheries down with reaver, DT, or something like that.
im not going to fully imatate a progammer because id be weaker and get my ass handed to me. i just cant have 3 undefended exp and pretend im goign to kill 4 archons with 12 muts, because i wont.
you have to delay toss's expos for as long as possible w/ mutas and lings while teching to hive the key to this build is constant harass and mobility so that, ideally, toss's expos are just up as you get hive tech, where you can suicide a few lings + defiler to kill them with ease it's basically just crippling toss's eco and waiting for them to suicide into you
On January 30 2009 16:38 Monkeyz_Rule wrote: I've seen this general build used a few times before but never with so few mutalisks before. There was a game of savior vs free on zodiac where savior went mass muta into hive like this but that was over way before the hive tech. Jaedong did a heavy muta with double evo build on athena vs much but the game ended before hive tech their as well. I recall watching an fpvod of Jaedong vs Much on blitz where Jaedong used pretty much the exact same build but went ultralisks before defilers (however abused the double gas island expo instead of mass sunkens) which according to TLPD was in 2006, so the general build is actually pretty old, and calm just refined it to fit the map and current play style.
I think the main thing in Calm's game was just that he managed to pick off 2 archons without losing his mutas, making Tester so lacking in gas units that he couldn't recover. I mean mass mutas is a pretty viable strategy, so playing down 2 archons was just too difficult.
I've used this build quite a few times and have won far more than I lost with it. The build can be used on other maps but I wouldn't suggest it against the speedlot+2 archon push. But I have found it to be incredibly good on Python because not only can you take 4 gas while only needing to mass sunks at 2 bases, but the really hard to defend 3rd gas on Python makes it very difficult for P to expo while still keeping his main and gateways covered.
The main use I have found for this build is when P goes +1 speedlot rush (usually after 1 corsair) because most P just assume you are going to transition into something else. So they go for the standard goon+storm+obs 1a2a3a midgame push and just get run over because all those are bad vs mutas. And even if they don't their failed rush still puts them behind so the strat is still perfectly viable. The main thing about this build is that usually if you win with it you could have won using any other followup instead of fast hive tech.
As for "counters" to this build the main thing that comes to mind would be what Best did in his game vs Haran on Chupung where he did the 4 gate speedlot+archon rush but continued to pump corsairs from his stargate (even if Haran wasn't doing anything like this build).
I agree with this.
Some of you guys are saying "it won't work vs this or that". That is stupid because this build is vs a specific type of build. For example, if toss didn't even fe going for a 3rd expo is just meaningless. This build has plenty of time to adapt with scourge scout, of course it can't be compared to a build that's designed for corsair/reaver, but it can hold its own.
I wouldn't say calm had bad macro either. He is not ahead, but he did power drones for some time. The game could have gone both ways, but Calm was able to build on his advantage when he destroyed 2 archons with his mutas in the beginning (I thought this was pretty amazing, even if he abused the cliff).
Against someone who has good muta micro, the toss would need to be pumping corsairs to counter. Pro zergs are getting good at sniping archons with mutas.
On January 31 2009 03:28 DukE wrote: I'm sorry but i need to say this. "speacial", exactly how you spelled it in the OP, is how i lost in my 2nd grade spelling bee.
On January 31 2009 03:45 Zerg_Sasuke wrote: will it work with mass hydra follow-up instead of lings/hive ?
That's pretty much standard 3 hatch spire into 5 hat hydra, but with muta harass while hydra upgrades are coming. You will go for a more mid-game push and not take a hive until you can secure a 4th gas (or at least I don't think so).
July did something just like that vs Bisu on chupung during the incruit OSL:
the goal with the muta harass in that sort of style is to really force the protoss to make as many sairs/archons as you can force him to make (also use as many storms as possible) to fight off your mutas so that your hydras are much more powerful.
On January 30 2009 17:01 Rucky wrote: I don't see how you can stop protoss from taking a third if you're turtling. Yes you can use mutaling, but protoss can easily protect his 3rd with zealarchon+corsair. Most P's don't even go for the intial push, if they see you turtle. They'll be happy to match 3 base with 3 base and then run you over.
You use Muta/ling and rely on your mobility to stop his 3rd. Ideally you need cannons + sairs + an archon just to protect one expo. You figure, you need an archon in the main, and archon in the nat and another archon to go expo, plus cannons at main and nat and sairs, which you hope won't get scourged. The hope is, you can pick off cannons, keep harassing and delay his 3rd, which is inevitable.
Meanwhile, you can take your 4th really easily (python) because if you expo to your natural, you can sunk it up and take the main easily. So for a short amount of time, you'll have 4 bases vs 2 bases. Toss may still have a slight economic advantage, but you'll be far from getting run over.
it's interesting to watch how zvp has evolved at destination. i think of this build as an intermediary step to the current zvp domination on that map. as such, there are strengths and weaknesses of this build, and we can see the adaptation of these strengths as well as the avoidance of its weaknesses in current zvp destination games.
first, if we notice current zvp destination games, there is a strong reliance on hydras in contrast to this build. the reason for this, i think, has to do with a weakness in the "calm" build; too much passive play for the zerg until hive tech. so yes, this build blocks the protoss 4 gate speedlot archon rush with an impenetrable defense of sunkens/simicity and diversionary attacks with mutas. but instead of sitting passively, the current five hatch hydra strat incorporates a similar amount of resource investment but into hydras instead of sunkens. this allows zerg to attack as well as defend as necessary.
another weakness of the "calm" build is its reliance on early mutas. protoss simply has to add some sairs to beat this build. so these days, we see more early scourge and mass hydras, with mutas coming after the sair threat has been destroyed.
i think one strength of this "calm" build is the manner in which destination's bridges/cliffs are used for mutas to sniper archons/high templars. we see this incorporated most clearly in games like luxury vs jangbi in winners league and zero vs bisu on msl.
and of course, the back and forth attacking style of gaurdians in the rear and cracklings in the front is really cool as well. I just think that, in contrast to recent games where zerg wins at lair tech, the extended timing period of passive defense in the "calm" build makes it too vulnerable to changes in Protoss's strategy, namely sair/shuttle.
overall, i think this build needs to be viewed as a desperation move by zergs to use a strategy that the commentators said is over 7 years old and was used on lost temple. i'm not saying it's a bad strategy, i'm just saying that it's not being used currently on destination for a reason: it helped zergs to start winning against protoss on this map, forcing the protoss to change from their speedlot/archon rush strat, but is no longer being used against protoss's sair/reaver.
thx for posting this OP and games; i had missed them and was always wondering what had caused P to divert from the speedlot/archon rush that Horang2 pulled on GGplay
Look at the youtube VODs the OP posted. The mutas hardly did any eco damage and still it worked. What you need to do is delay his third by sniping his probe or something, by doing this you can expand more safely, and if he pushes out youve got too many sunks for him to deal with. These vidoes show the build on destenation where you ca get a easy fourth expansion if you have secured the 3rd. Which you ofc have since youve double expanded. If you get these four expos up then that all you need for mass crackling and defiler, once youve gained map control you can easily take a 5th expo if nessesary.
The hard part of this build is muta micro, it doesent need to be that great but you have to make him know that youve got alot of mutas attacking him, if he makes alot of cannons its gonna be easier for you to kill him when the cracklings arrive.
Also if a Toss goes sair reaver then you defenatly shouldnt do this build which is fine since youll discover what build he is doing before the build really deviates.
Haha I'd like to have seen Backho's face when he nearly cracked Heros nat, looking so strong and then suddenly be drowned with unending streams of cracklings!
EPT
Calm played a game on Destination vs 
Tester where he used what appears to be a speacial map-specific build I had never seen before. Maybe the obscurity of the game (2 not too big players that didn't advance into the Ro32, PLUS savior was in their group) lead to it not getting much attention(or maybe this is just an older build/strat that I've just never seen before and I now look like a huge newb for making this thread), but I thought this build was AWESOME(also I'd like to note that . Basically it's somewhat playing Zerg like Terran (small harass through the midgame with large turtling into 1 big push). 
